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CINCINNATI: 
WALDEN & STOWE. 

1883. 



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The "Home College Series" will contain one hundred short papers on 
a wide range of subjects — biographical, historical, scientific, literary, domes- 
tic, political, and religious. Indeed, the religious tone will characterize all 
of them. They are written for every body — for all whose leisure is limited, 
but who desire to use the minutes for tbe enrichment of life. 

These papers contain seeds from the best gardens in all the world of 
human knawledge, and if dropped wisely into good soil, will bring forth 
harvests of beauty and value. 

They are for the young — especially for young people (and older people, 
too) who are out of the schools, who are full of "business" and "cares," 
who are in danger of reading nothing, or of reading a sensational literature 
that is worse than nothing. 

One of these papers a week read over and over, thought and talked about 
at "odd times," will give in one year a vast fund of information, an intel- 
lectual quickening, worth even more than the mere knowledge acquired, a 
taste for solid reading, many hours of simple and wholesome pleasure, and 
ability to talk intelligently and helpfully to one's friends. 

Pastors may organize " Home College " classes, or " Lyceum Reading 
Unions," or "Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Cjrcles," and help the 
young people to read and think and talk and live to worthier purpose. 

A young man may have his own little " college " all by himself, read this 
series of tracts one after the other, (there-will soon be one hundred of them 
ready,) examine himself on tliem by the " Thought-Outline to Help the Mem- 
ory," and thus gain knowledge, and, what is better, a love of knowledge. 

And what a young man may do in this respect, a young woman, and both 

old men and old women, may do. 

J. H. Vincent. 

New York, Jan., 1S88. 



Copyright, 18§g, by Phillips & Hunt, New York. 



mnt Crrlitgt Sfrifs, ftxtmbtr Cfatntg-sif. 



JOHN MILTON. 



John Milton was born in Bread Street, London, on the 
9tli of December, 1G08. His father was a respectable scriv- 
ener, or writer of wills, deeds, and other legal documents, 
and "came of an honest or honorable stock." He had 
proved himself to be a man of sturdy character by openly 
adhering to Protestantism at the price of being disinherited 
by his bigoted Roman Catholic father. Our poet's mother 
was named. Sarah, and though her family connections are 
unknown, it is supposed they were of equal, if not superior, 
standins: to those of his father. She is said to have had 
very weak eyes, being obliged to use spectacles shortly after 
she was thirty years old. Milton speaks of her as "a most 
excellent mother, and particularly known for her charities in 
the neighborhood." 

Of six children born to this suitably matched pair, John 
Milton was the third. But three of those children dying in 
infancy he was reared with his sister Anne, several years 
older than himself, and his brother Christopher, "exactly 
seven years younger." Their home in Bread Street was in 
the very heart of old London, where the future poet's mind 
must have been stored with such imagery as impresses itself 
on a thoughtful child living in familiarity with the numerous 
objects which pass and repass with panoramic variety in 
crowded street life. 

Still greater, however, wns the influence of Milton's home 
life on the development of his genius. His home was the 
abode of plenty, peace, culture, and piety. The busy in- 
dustry of the scrivener's daily life was crowned by evenings 
spent around the cheerful tire in religious reading, devo- 
tional exercises, musical performances, and conversation^ 



JOHN MILT OK 



which was not gossip, but serious discussions between the 
scrivener and his Puritan callers on such stirring questions 
as the beheading of the noble Raleigh, the prelatic and Ro- 
manistic tendencies of King James, the doings of the Synod 
of Dort, which condemned the scriptural theories of that 
great theologian, James Arminius, and kindred questions of 
Church and of State. All this seriousness was tempered by 
that sweet cheerfulness which is the effluence of affection 
united to intelligence. Hence our poet's home was, in the 
best sense, a home of happiness. Young Milton enjoyed it, 
as well he might, since he was the pride and delight of his 
parents, who saw in him the promise of that greatness which 
his future life fulfilled. His portrait, painted when he was 
ten years old by Cornelius Jansen, is that, says Masson, " of 
a very grave and intelligent little Puritan boy with auburn 
hair. The prevailing expression in the face is a lovable 
seriousness." A passage in " Paradise Regained " is not im- 
probably thought to describe Milton's recollections of his 
childhood : 

" When I was yet a cliild, no childish play- 
To nie was pleasing; all my mind was set 
Serious to learn and know, and thence to do, 
What might be public good : myself I thought 
Born to that end, born to promote all truth 
And righteous things." 

Milton's scholastic education began early under his father's 
direction and care, who also provided him private teachers 
at home until he was in his twelfth year. He then sent him 
to St. Paul's Grammar School. These helps, seconded by 
his own really excessive but loving diligence in study, pre- 
pared him for admission to Christ's College, Cambridge 
University, Feb. 12, 1624, when he was sixteen years and 
two months old. Here his devotion to study was unabated. 
It was his habit to " sit up till midnight at his book, which 
was the first thing that brought his eyes into the danger of 



JOHN MILTON. 



blindness." For some reason, not fully exj^lained, lie had 
some disagreements with Chappell, his first tutor, and with 
Bainbridge, master of the college, which made him for a 
time unpopular with the college authorities. Out of these 
facts arose the legend, sanctioned by Johnson, that Milton 
was " whipped at college." But, after carefully sifting the 
evidence by which this scandal was suj^ported, Masson, the 
poet's most exhaustive biographer, pronounces it unworthy 
of credit. That he was rusticated for a short time while an 
undergraduate is tolerably certain. Yet not for any moral 
misconduct, but probably because his self-assertion and 
mental independence gave offense to his official superiors, 
some of whom he despised as being his inferiors, if not in 
attainments, yet in intellectual breadth and quality of mind. 

But, after securing a more congenial tutor, his supreme 
devotion to study, the superiority of his college exercises, 
the solidity of his attainments, and the purity of his morals, 
soon won the admiration, the praise, and the affection of most 
of the P'ellows of his college. Hence, when he closed liis 
university career and received his Master's degree, his repu- 
tation at Cambridge, both for scholarship and character, was 
" extraordinary." Still he did not very highly esteem his 
Alma Mater. He did not like the system then pursued at 
Cambridge, and, says Masson, " his subsequent allusions to 
the university are uniformly critical." 

Milton is now nearly twenty-four years old. As he quits 
college we behold him a man little under middle height, 
neither massive nor powerful, but slender and elegant in 
figure. He has light brown hair, an oval face, clear, dark 
gray eyes, and a complexion so delicately white and red that 
his classmates have good-humoredly nicknamed him "the 
lady." His gait is manly and erect, expressing undaunted 
courage. His demeanor, though not effeminate, is exceed- 
ingly afl'able. He is a man of great j^ersonal beauty. 

The leadino' characteristic of his mind is a habitual 



JOHN MILTON. 



seriousness, which is ahnost austere. lie has little taste for 
festivities, jests, or pastimes, albeit he has made himself a 
good swordsman by daily j)ractice with that weapon. When 
thinking of his relations to God he is humble as becometh 
a sinful man; in presence of men he acts as one deeply con- 
scious of the possession of great facts, displaying a noble 
egotism, an unbashful self-assertion, which at times clothes 
him with an air of "kingly intolerance." But there is no 
more " fixed idea " in his great mind than that of the neces- 
sity of moral integrity to a life of truly great endeavor of 
whatever kind. His polar star was fidelity to duty. 

Such was the man John Milton when, in 1632, he returned 
to his father's house crowned with the respect of the Fellows 
of Cambridge, leaving, as Masson suggests, no equal behind 
him in the whole university. 

To what uses will this rarely-endowed young man put his 
great abilities and his superior attainments? How will he 
find the place among men for which nature and education 
have fitted him ? Let us trace him along the path by which 
he became a power amid the great movements which were 
about to take place in his native land. 

His father, from the time of his discovery that this be- 
loved boy was endowed with rare gifts, had intended him 
for the work of the ministry in the Church of England. 
Milton himself, influenced, not by any sense of obligation to 
be a minister, but only by his father's wish, had looked for- 
ward to a clerical life until toward the approach of the time 
when he must make a final decision. Then, looking more 
closely than before through the windows of the Church into 
her interior, he saw in the rule of Laud so many restrictions 
on the freedom of her pulpits, so much sympathy with 
papistical modes of worship, with the despotic claims of the 
reigning King Charles I., and with the Arminian as against 
the Calvinistic clergy, that his conscience recoiled from the 
oaths and submissions required of candidates for orders. 



JOHN MILTON. 



Hence, as one bound by a "fixed idea" of duty which for- 
bade him to settle any great life problem by merely selfish 
considerations, he refused to further entertain a purpose to 
seek ordination. In doing this he acted like a true man; but 
who can estimate what the Church of England missed when 
his imperial mind made that sacrifice to conscience ! 

Milton's good father was no longer a citizen of London, 
but of Horton, Buckinghamshire, whither he had retired 
with a snug fortune to enjoy the fruits of a life industriously 
and honorably employed. Thither our graduate went to 
make known his wishes respecting a profession. At first he 
inclined to study law, but took no steps in that direction. 
Very soon, however, the bent of his mind toward a literary 
life decided him to enter upon a course of general study 
without any particular professional aim, yet with a sort of 
dim forecast that it might result in possible authorship, or, 
perchance, in some other public application of his powers. 
His poetical college exercises, by their uncommon merit, had 
already suggested to his university associates and to himself 
that he was destined to be a poet. Yet neither he nor they 
foresaw how grand a part he was about to take in national 
affairs, or to what lofty height his genius would subsequently 
soar. Could his admiring father have seen through the ob- 
scurity of that hour of uncertainty, instead of feeling dis- 
appointed, as he did, at his son's determination, he would 
have seen that it was of all others the best adapted to fit 
him for the great work Providence intended him to perform. 

Milton spent five years at Horton filling his imagination 
with images of the natural beauty with which it abounded, 
and diligently reading the literature of both ancient and 
modern times. While buried in these quiet studies his poetic 
genius was quickened into productiveness by the request of 
his intimate friend, Henry Lawes, a musician, that he would 
write a "masque," or literary entertainment, to be given in 
honor of the venerable Dowager Countess of Derby, at 



6 JOTIN MTLTON. 



Harelield. His rcnponse was liis " Arcades." The exquisite 
beauty of this composition led Lord Brackley to ask him for 
another " masque," to be performed at an entertainment to 
be given to the neighboring nobility and gentry at Shrop- 
shire Castle. To meet his lordship's wishes Milton wrote 
his "Comus," in which, to sensuous pictures of English 
landscape and atmosphere, he joined rich ideal conceptions 
of moral and intellectual beauty, breathing a healthful ])urity 
of tone and expressed in rhythmic words of unexceptionable 
literary taste. The sudden death by drowning of his college 
companion, Edward King, moved him to write a monody, 
which he named " Lycidas." These poems, with a few son- 
nets, and his "L' Allegro" and "II Penseroso," were all 
written during the five years of his abode in llorton. They 
illustrated the vast range of his reading, the influence of 
Italian jioets on his poetic genius, the delicicy, sweetness, and 
melody of his versification. They justified the expectation 
of his friends respecting his poetical endowments which had 
budded in numerous compositions from the time he was ten/ 
years old; but which now bloomed into poems that com- 
manded the " admiration of critics," and gave him, if not 
the highest, yet no mean eminence among the poets of his 
native land. 

In 1637 Milton's mother died. Not long after, his brother 
Christopher, then recently married, took up his iibode with 
their venerable father, and our poet started on a tour to 
Continental Euro})e. Ilis generous father furnished him 
with money, since Milton himself had never earned "a penny 
for himself," nor did he do so, says Masson, until he was 
over thirty-two years of age. Ilis consenting to live so long 
in this dependent condition must be taken as proof, both of 
his good father's pecuniary ability and of his strong desire 
to give his learned son the fullest opportunity possible to 
prepare himself for a great career. 

jVIilton spent fifteen months visiting France, Italy, and 



JOHN MILTON. 



Switzerland, making the acquaintance of the most distin- 
guished men of the ^q^q, and constantly adding to his rich 
stores of knowledge. His learning and conversation won 
admiration wherever he went. He would have prolonged 
his stay, but for the muttering sounds of the impending 
revolution in his native land which, even at that distance, 
reached his attentive ears. " I thought it dishonorable," he 
writes, " that I should be traveling at my ease for amuse- 
ment when my fellow-countrymen at home were fighting for 
liberty." Spurred by patriotic desiies to bear his proper 
part in the great conflict he hastened across the channel. 
In closing his account of his journey he penned these mem- 
orable words: "I take God to witness that in all those places 
where so many things are considered lawful, I lived sound 
and untouched from all profligacy and vice, having this 
thought perpetually with me, that, though I might escape 
the eyes of men, I certainly could not the eyes of God." 

Milton's tour in Italy stands intimately related to his great 
epics. The unstinted praises he received there from the lips 
of learned men stimulated his literary ambition, until he re- 
solved to write a poem such as mankind " should not willing- 
ly let die." What should be its topic and what its form, 
epic or lyric, became questions on which he deeply and con- 
stantly thought. But before he reached a decision the din 
of approaching national convulsion filled his ears and sum- 
moned his pen to attempt a sterner task. Parliament in its 
war on the prelacy of the English Church needed a cham- 
pion. To Milton the strife was congenial. He was a born 
Reformer. Hence he hastened to buckle on his polemical 
armor and to engage in the momentous strife. 

Our poet is now living in London, his father having re- 
moved from Horton to Reading with his son Christopher. 
Milton is in a hired house instructing a few boy pupils, the 
sons of wealthy friends. Here, too, he is busy writing a trea- 
tise on Church discipline which, when published, arouses tbQ 



8 JOHN MILTON. 



ire of churchmen, and provokes a reply from Bishop Hall. 
A quintette of Puritan ministers retort on Hall, for whose 
rescue Archbishop Usher enters the lists. This strong man, 
by pressing the five I*uritans Avith superior learning and 
logic, compels Milton to resume his pen, which he wields 
with such learning, vigor, and logic, that when he sends out 
his fifth pamphlet he remains master of the field. 

By this time the sword of civil war is drawn. Parliament 
and king are at war; armies are mustering; England is in 
the throes of fierce revolution. But why Milton does not 
respond to freedom's call for soldiers is unknown. Early in 
1643, for some reason never explained, our poet takes a 
jgturney into Oxfordshire. He is absent only one short 
month when he returns to London with a wife whom he had 
wooed and won in that brief period. Her maiden name was 
Mary Powell, with whom he may have had some slight pre- 
vious acquaintance, but who is utterly unfitted to be the wife 
of such a studious and austere man as Milton is. She can 
dance and flirt, but cannot bring herself into harmony with 
the pursuits, the tastes, the habits, and the aspirations of a 
man whose mind dwells in a realm of thought too high and 
too vast for her comprehension. Masson describes her as 
"No Minerva, but a simple and apparently rather stupid 
country girl." Very naturally, before the honey-moon ex- 
pires, she is dissatisfied with her lot. Sad and homesick, she 
obtains Milton's consent to pay a short visit to her father's 
house. Once there she refuses to return. Milton being indig- 
nant, and perhaps aware that by marrying her he has commit- 
te<l a life- long mistake, takes to writing pamphlets on divorce, 
arguing with strong logic, bad use of Scripture, and equally 
bad ethics, that "moral incompatibility is as good a ground 
for divorce as conjugal infidelity, if not a better." Alas ! 
that so ripe a scholar and so pure a man should permit his 
indignation to so blind his judgment as to make him the 
advocate of a theory that robs marriage of its sanctity, and, 



JOHN MILTON. 9 



on the plea of personal liberty, justilies a license destructive 
of social purity. But the moral and religious instincts of 
the times were stronger than Milton's arguments, and his 
pamphlets did no further harm than to cast a shadow on his 
reputation. 

It is not unlikely that he would have reduced his theory 
to practice, by ignoring the law of the land and marrying 
another woman to whom he was already making suit, but for 
the return of Mrs. Milton to his home, with suitable apologies 
for having forsaken it. Necessity, not affection, moved her 
to this step. Her friends were Royalists. The king's 
armies were flying before the victorious Roundheads, and 
Mrs. Milton's father and his family were only too glad to 
find shelter and protection under the Puritan poet's roof. 
His own father was now residing with him, and he was still 
enn»loyed with his pupils, for whose benefit he made several 
compilations, but did "next to nothing" in poetry. 

In 1640, Parliament, regardless of the divinity sup])osed 
" to hedge about a king," beheaded Charles I. No doubt 
that false, despotic monarch deserved this tragic death. But 
such was the prevailing traditional respect for royalty, that 
the fall of the king's head on the scaffold sent a thrill of 
horror through the heart of England. The people showed 
signs of disaffection toward the Parliament which had done 
the just, yet dreaded, deed. Whereupon our brave Milton 
employed his pen in defense of the judicial ax. His oppor- 
tune pamphlet attracted the attention of the Government of 
the Commonwealth, and he was appointed foreign or Latin 
Secretary to the Council. 

Two pamphlets soon appeared censuring the execution of 
the king. One, in English, falsely portrayed the dead 
Charles as a saint, eulogizing him as " the royal martyr." 
The other, in Latin, by the learned Salmasius, was widely 
circulated among learned men, particularly on the Continent. 
Milton replied to both, cutting the former to pieces with a 



10 JOHN MILTON. 



merciless and triumphant criticism, and so completely ex- 
posing the fallacies of the latter as to overwhelm Salmasius 
with a chagrin which, it was thought, hastened his death. 

Victorious in controversy, recognized by his Puritan 
friends as their strongest intellectual athlete, Milton was 
nevertheless doomed to suffer sore affliction. When thirty- 
five years old he had begun to be conscious of a slight dim- 
ness in his vision. Very slowly, yet surely, this dimness had 
increased from year to year. But now that he is in the very 
prime of his life, about forty-four years old, he becomes 
" totally blind ! " No mark or speck, not even an appearance 
of dimness, in his eyes, betrays the sad fact to observing 
friends. But his sight is gone, and very soon the words 
" Milton is blind " pass from lip to lip, moving his friends to 
sympathetic grief and his enemies to malicious joy. 

Just before his blindness becomes total his wife dies, leav- 
ing three children to his care : Anne, about seven years old ; 
Mary, five ; Deborah, an infant. His father has now been 
dead some time; so has his father-in-law. His wife's family 
have gone back to their old home. Poor blind Milton ! The 
death of his wife does not probably wound his affections 
very deeply, but to be blind with three tiny motherless 
children vainly wailing in his ears for maternal attention, is 
indeed a trial hard to be borne, and more likely to irritate 
than to sooth a nature like his, which finds its highest pleas- 
ure, not in familiar intercourse with friends, but in the 
seclusion of a quiet study. 

Blind though he is, Milton continues in his office, dictating 
his correspondence and pamphlets to an amanuensis. Some 
three years after his first wife's death he marries again, but 
this time to a lady named Catharine Woodcock, who is better 
fitted than was Mary Powell to be his wife. But in less 
than one year she dies in giving birth to a child, which 
dies also, Milton mourns bis loss in a sonnet, in which he 
says; 



JOHN MILTON. 11 



" To my fancied siglit 
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shined 
So clear, as in no place with more delight." 

Milton continues to defend the republic with his pen 
whenever it is assailed. In political controversy he has no 
equal. But the pen has no power to stay the arm of death, 
and Milton, when forty-nine years old, is called to grieve 
over the death of the " chief of men," the hitherto irresist- 
ible Cromwell. Uncertainty, almost anarchy, follows the 
fall of the greatest soldier of the Commonwealth. Yet, 
standing with firm integrity by his principles, "bating no 
jot of heart or hope," Milton bravely plies his pen against 
kingship and in favor of a free commonwealth, even down 
to the year in which Charles II., supported by Monk's army, 
ascended his father's throne. Having justified the regicides 
in doughty pamphlets, he probably expects to share their 
doom. He is actually arrested. His writings are publicly 
burned by the common hangman. He makes no concessions, 
yet is soon set at liberty and left to pursue his way as he 
lists, through the solicitations, as is supposed, of Davenant, 
the poet-laureate of the restored dynasty. 

Our poet is now nearly fifty-two years old. The Common- 
wealth to which he has devoted his Titanic strength during 
the last twenty years, and of which he has been the intellect- 
ual leader, lies in majestic ruin before him. Yet he sees no 
reason to regret the great j^art he filled in the national 
tragedy. The principles he taught he believes to be eternal, 
and will survive to work out their grand results in the future 
history of mankind. He is, as he was when Cromwell lived 
to ^pply his theories, an ultra-republican in politics, a radical 
independent in Church government, a believer in religious 
toleration and in the freedom of the press. Conscious of 
having put these great thoughts into words worthy of their 
greatness, he is content to leave them as sharp arrows to be 
used under happier auspices by reformers as yet unborn. 



12 JOHN MILTON. 



Such is his faith in the year 1660. And we who live to-day- 
know his faith was not a dream. Milton's theories are seeth- 
ing like restless waves in the hearts of men, and steadily 
forcing modern institutions into harmony with their de- 
mands. 

The Restoration introduced an epoch of moral corruption 
into England. Immorality reigned with unblushing face at 
court. Bad men sat in the seats of power. Sensuality 
poisoned its literature. Morality and Puritanism were re- 
garded with scornful contempt. To Milton, especially, the 
times were evil./ Blind, neglected, except by a few learned 
friends and scholarly strangers from abroad, detested and ill- 
treated by two of his undutiful daughters, his life was in- 
deed a troubled one. / Hoping to find some relief from his 
domestic troubles, he married a third wife when fifty-four 
years of age. The Indy, though twenty-eight years younger 
than himself, Avas "very kind and careful of him." His 
three daughters, proving incorrigible, and hating to read to 
him as required to do in languages they did not under- 
stand, were, in 1669, sent from home to learn some art by 
which to earn their own living. Doubtless they were greatly 
to blame; but it is equally certain that Milton's stern, austere 
mode of life and undemonstrative nature unfitted him to 
develop the better side of his motherless children. They 
were unfilial, but he was a very imperfect father. 

During the fourteen years which lay between the Restora- 
tion and our poet's death, besides several prose works, he 
wrote his immortal epics, "Paradise Lost," "Paradise Re- 
gained," and his dramatic poem, " Samson Agonistes." It 
is supposed that he began the first during the latter years of 
Cromw^ell's life. It is certain, however, that the greater 
part of it was written during the years next preceding the 
date of its publication, April, 1667. Simmons, his publisher, 
paid him the contemptible sum of £5 for this immortal poem, 
with a promise of £5 additional when 1,300 copies should 



JOHN MILTON. 13 



have been sold, and still another <£5 after the sale of 1,300 
copies of the second edition, the same royalty to be paid 
also for successive editions. Milton lived to see the publi- 
cation of its third edition. 

"Paradise Regained," written at the suggestion of a 
Quaker named Ellwood, was published with his " Samson 
Agonistes" in the same volume in 1671. 

Three years after the appearance of " Paradise Regained," 
our poet, now greatly esteemed and often visited by illus- 
trious strangers curious to see the man whose mighty genius 
had produced the grandest poem of the age, if not of all 
ages, was brought face to face with death. His old enemy, 
the "gout, struck in," and on the 8th of November, 1674, he 
passed quietly and painlessly away into the eternal Paradise 
of which he had sung so sweetly in his imperishable poems. 

Of Milton's religious experience little is known beyond 
what may be inferred from his writings and his manner of 
life. Of the purity of his morals, and of his loyalty to his 
convictions, there can be but one opinion. That his doctrinal 
views were somewliat alloyed with the dross of error must 
be admitted.* It is also true that his nature was stern, and 
that, in his controversial writings, he exhibited in high 
degree that fierceness and uncharitableness which, though 
characteristic of both Puritan and Cavalier in his troublous 
times, cannot be regarded as fruits of a Christ-like charity. 
Assuredly his piety was more intellectual than emotional. 
It was more deeply rooted in his conscience than in his affec- 
tions. If we knew wdiat passed in the secret chambers of 



* Peter CuDiiingham, the aunotator of "Johnson's Lives of EngUsh 
Poets," observes that Miltoti's theological opinions were determined in 1823 
by a discovery in the State Paper Office of his " Treatise on Christian Doc- 
trine," written in Latin and printed in 1824 by command of George IV. 
Milton was an Arian. And Mr. C. cites Hallam as saying, that "the dis- 
covery of Milton's Arianisra in this rigid generation has already impaired 
the sale of ' Paradise Lost.' " 



14 JOHN MILTON. 



his grand soul, especially in the latter years of his life, we 
should probably learn that in his personal relations to God 
he was as loyal as he had always been to the great principles 
which he believed to be grounded in the utterances of Holy 
Writ. 

Concerning Milton's character, Macaulay justly observes : 
" There are a few [historic] characters which have stood the' 
closest scrutiny and the severest tests; which have been tried 
in the furnace and have proved pure ; which have been 
weighed in the balance and have not been found wanting; 
which have been declared sterling by the general consent of 
mankind, and which are visibly stamped with the image and 
superscription of the Most High. These great men we trust 
that we know how to prize. And of these was Milton. The 
sight of his books, the sound of his name, are refreshing to 
us. His thoughts resemble those celestial fruits and flowers 
which the "Virgin Martyr" of Massinger sent down from 
the gardens of Paradise to the earth, distinguished from the 
productions of other soils, not only by their superior bloom 
and sweetness, but by their miraculous efficacy to invigorate 
and to heal. They are powerful, not only to delight, but to 
elevate and purify. Nor do we envy the man who can study 
either the life or the writings of the great poet and patriot 
without aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime works 
with which his genius has enriched our literature, but the 
zeal with which he labored for the public good, the fortitude 
with which he endured every private calamity, the lofty dis- 
dain with which he looked down on temptations and dangers, 
the deadly hatred which he bore to bigots and tyrants, and 
the faith which he so sternly kept with his country and with 
his fame." 

It would be little less than impertinence to attempt any 
discussion of the merits of Milton's poetry in a paper so 
limited as this. It must, therefore, suffice to say that the 
opinion of mankind has placed his name in the loftiest niche 



JOnn MILTON. 15 



of poetic fame; and that no one can make any just preten- 
sion to a knowledge of English literature who does not at 
least read with care his marvelously musical epics, "Para- 
dise Lost " and " Paradise Regained." A few brief extracts 
IS all we have space to insert : 

"How cliarming is divine philosophy! 

Not harsh and rugged, as dull fools suppose ; 

But musical as is Apollo's lute." — Comus. 

" The mind is its own place, and in itself 
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." 

— Paradise Lost. 

"Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep." 

— Ibid. 

*' The other shape, 
(If shape it might be called that shape had none 
Distinguishable, in member, joint, or limb. 
Or substance might be called that shadow seemed, 
For each seemed either,) black it stood as night, 
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell. 
And shook a dreadful dart, what seemed his head 
The likeness of a kingly crown had on." — Ibid. 

*' Good, the more '* 

Communicated, more abundant grows." — Ibid. 



16 JOHN MILTON. 



THE POETRY OF VIRTUE AND PIETY. 



" For in the days ... of old there were chief of the 
singers, and songs of praise and thanksgiving unto God." 
— Nehemiah. 

" Was there ever any thing so delightful as the music of 
' Paradise Lost ? ' It is like that of a fine organ, has the 
fullest and deepest tones of majesty with all the softness 
and eloquence of the Dorian lute; variety without end, and 
never equaled except, perhaps, by Virgil." — Cowper. 

" Milton stood alone and aloof above his times, the bard of 
immortal subjects, and as far as there is perpetuity in lan- 
guage, of immortal fame." — Campbell. 

" We often hear of the magical influence of poetry. The 
expression in general means nothing, but applied to the 
writings of Milton it is most appropriate; his poetry acts 
like an incantation. . . . It is impossible to conceive that 
the mechanism of language can be brought to a more ex- 
quisit/3 degree of perfection." — Macaulay. 

" Milton's ' Comus,' well worked out, with a complete 
originality and extraordinary elevation of style, is, perhaps, 
his masterpiece, and is simply the eulogy of virtue." — Taine. 

" Milton had that universality which marks the highest or- 
der of intellect." — ^Oiianning. 

*' Three poets, in three distant ages born, 
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn : 
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed ; 
The next in majesty ; in both the last. 
The force of nature could no further go : 
To make a third she joined the former two." 

— Dryden's Epigram on Milton. 



[thought-outline to help the memory.] 

1. Birth — time and place ? Parents? Children? Home life? Education? 

2. Appearance at 24? Seriousness? Why not a minister? At Horton? 

"Masque?" Early poems? 

3. Death of motiier ? The continent ? In London ? Controversy ? Civil war ? 

Marriage? Mary Powell? 

4. Secretary to the Council ? Controversy? Blindness? Bereavement? Chil- 

dren? Second marriage? Again bereaved? Cromwell? Corruption in 
England alter the Eestoration ? 

5. Third wife? Daughters? Fourteen years of literary work ? Death? Ke- 

ligious experience ? 



No. 1. Biblical Rjcploration. A Con- 
(U'lised ManiKil '>\\ II. iw to Sl\idv the 
Bible. By J. H. Vuiceiit, D.D. ' F-iU 
and rich ' . 10 

No. -2. Studies of the Stars. A Pockot 
Guide to the Science of Astruiiomy. 
By H. W. Warren, D.D 10 

No. 3. Bible Studies for Little People. 
By Eev. B. T. Vincent 10 

No. 4. English History. Bv J. II. Vin- 
cent, D.D ! 10 

No. 5. Greek History. By J. H. Vin- 
cent, D.D 10 

No. t>. Greek Literatiue. Bv A. D. 
VaiK D.D " 20 

No. 7. Memoriiil Days of the Dhautau- 
qua Literary and Scif^nlitic Circle. ... 10 

No. 8. What Noted Men Think of the 
Bible, liy L. T. I'ownsend. D.D 10 

No. 9 William Cnllon Bryant 10 

No. 10. What is Education? By Wm. 

F. Phelps, A.M 10 

No. 11. Socrates. By Prof. W. F. Phelps, 
A.M 10 

No. 12. Pestalozzi. Bv Prof. W. F. 
Phell<S A.M 10 

N". l:?. Anjjio-Saxon. By Prof. Albert 
S. Cook 20 

No. 14. Horace Mann. By Pr<»r. Wm. 
F. Phelps. A.M 10 

No. IS. Fnebel. Bv Prof. Wm. F. 
Phelps, A.M " 10 

No. 16. Roman Historv. Bv J. H. Viii- 
cent, D.D ." 10 

No. 17. Rower .\scinm •u\(1 Jdliii Sturm. 
Glimpses of Kdiic:\tii>n i-i the Six- 
teenth Centurv. I'.v Pmf. Win. F. 
Phelps. A.M.....'...." 10 

No. 18. Chrisiian Evidences. I'.v .r. H. 
Vincent, D.D 10 



CENTS. 

No. 19. The Book of Books. By J. M. 

Frecniai:. D.D 10 

No. ?0. Tlie Chaut;ui(|ua Hand-Book. 

Bv .r. II. Vincent, D.D 10 

No. 21. American Historv. By J. L. 

Hu'-ll.ni. A.M ■. 10 

N". 22. Biblical Biolo^rv. By Rev. J. 

H. Wvthe. A.M., M.D 10 

No. 23. English Liteiatuie. By Pi of. 

J. H. Gilinore 20 

No. 21. Onn;idi;in llissory. By James 

L. Ilnglies ." 10 

No. 25. Sc l-Kdtication. Bv JoslJiIi A1- 

den. D.D.. LL.D " 10 

No 26. The Tabernacle. Bv l!ev. .lolm 

C.Hill....'. 10 

No. 27. Readings from Ancii 111 (' assies. 10 
No. 28. Manners and Cusiniri- nt Bible 

Times. By J. M. Frr, ni.-in. D.D 10 

No. 29. Man's Anticniiu and Language. 

By M. S. Terry, D.D 10 

No. 30. The World of Missions. By 

Henry K. Carroll 10 

No. .31." What Noted Men Think of 

Christ. Bv L. T. Townsend, D.D. ... 10 
No. 32. A Brief Outline of the Hist'>iy 

of Art. Bv Miss Julia B.De Foi est.. 10 
No. 3:'.. Elihii Bnrritt: "The Learned 

Blacksmith." By Charles Nortbeiid. 10 
No. 34. Asiatic Historv: China, Corea. 

.LH'an. By Be V. Wm. Elliot Griftis.. 10 
No. 3.5. OuiiiTies ol General Historv. 

' i:y J. 11. Vincent. D.D .". 10 

No. 36. Assemltlv !lib(! Outlines. Bv 

J. H. Vincent, D.lt 10 

No. 37. Assembly Normal Outlines. By 

J. H. Vincent. D.D 10 

No. 38. The Life of Christ. By Rev. 

J. L. Hurlbut, M.A 10 

No. 39. The Sunda\-S<-hool Xonnal 

CLass. Bv J. H. Vincent, D.D 10 



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